Share this:

While we didn’t have to sand in-between tiny little chair legs, this giant slice of a tree weighed 100kg (200lbs) and was 1 meter wide – and was not easy to sand! I had come across the advertisement for these wood slices from a man living out on an island in one of the fjords who was selling these, Rasmus was a bit hesitant, but knew how excited I was able turning this wood into a table. One of the reasons I was so eager to leave Oslo and move to a more rural place is because I love DIY projects and just being outdoors getting my hands dirty in general. While we’re in our transition apartment now as we look for our long term farm, Rasmus knows how important it is to me to have these projects. So, we met the man and his wife at a local meeting place and purchased the giant wood!

The first thing we noticed was that it smelled really really bad. The man had soaked it in a oil to prevent it from shrinking, and we were told the smell would go away in a few months. Rasmus and I got to it with the high speed sander we borrowed from the carpenters next door. It took a few days to finish the sanding – we used the heavy strong sander to make it flat, and then a finer sander to smooth it down (on both sides). We then used a non-shiny lacquer to seal it on both sides. We did not go over the bark, we left that natural.

I did some major research trying to figure out what kind of base would give us the modern look I wanted. Using heavy natural wood can be tricky, because it can very easily end up looking like an old-fashioned cabin. I wanted to make sure we got that sophisticated look I was going for. Luckily I found a great base that was just the right size at Jysk, a low to medium priced Norwegian home & bedding shop.

After a few days of letting the lacquer dry, we literally just laid the wood on top of the base and screwed the nails into that instead of into the laminate board that came with it! It came out perfectly! The man who sold us the table had also offered us a small rectangular piece for an extra 200nok ($25usd) in case we had wanted to make legs for the table out of it. I took his offer and ended up using it to make an entry console to match! We used the same process as the coffee table, and found a coordinating console base at Jysk as well!

I will have to add a second part of this post in a few months because as winter had settled here on the northwest coast of Norway, and our heat source is a wood burning stove, the wood had begun to dry out an crack. We will definitely get creative trying to keep this table functioning and looking good at the same time! I’ll look forward to updating you on how that goes after we let the wood finish doing it’s thing this winter, and then make our adjustments!